


Mail Order Spies

by myheartismadeofstars



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, F/M, Long-Distance Relationship, Mail Order Brides, Pre-Iron Man 2, clint has depression, even though it was the 2000's, maybe? - Freeform, natasha is secretive, probably not period accurate, probably pre iron man 1 as well, they didn't meet in Budapest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-25 14:34:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7536568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myheartismadeofstars/pseuds/myheartismadeofstars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint Barton lives alone in SHIELD housing. His neighbour and fellow Agent is moving out because he's getting married. Turns out they met through an "International Marriage Agency" aka she's a mail order bride. Seeing how happy he is, Clint decides to give it a shot...<br/>The one that catches his eye (and steals his heart) may be a bit more than he bargained for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mail Order Spies

Clint was exhausted when he returned to SHIELD from a mission to Durban. The mission had gone fairly well despite a handful of injuries, but no unintended fatalities. Coulson had taken his sweet ass time with the debriefing, and Clint was ready to go to bed now.

However, his neighbour across the hall, an Agent... Salor? Something Salor. Darwin or Dawson or something similar like that. Seemed to be moving out. There were boxes around the room, and the door was wide open. A sure sign of someone moving, in Clint’s experience. 

Agent Salor was a quiet man who kept to himself and rarely grabbed much attention. That was probably the reason Clint liked him as much as he did (which was to say, not a lot but they were usually polite to each other). 

Clint stopped, his curiosity getting the better of him.

“Agent Salor.” He said politely.

“Hey, Clint.” He said, more cheerful than he usually was. That was...odd.

“Moving out? Fired? Quit?” Clint asked, not feeling half as tired anymore (turns out curiosity was quite the drug). Still, it was kinda unusual for Agents to move out of the SHIELD housing. Agents had to give up any trace of a social life when they joined. If they had had a social life at all.

Agent D Salor (if Clint hadn’t completely screwed up his name) laughed. “No, I’m still working here.” He said, standing up from the box he was packing. “I’m getting married in a couple months, so I’m getting ready to move into an apartment with my new wife.”

That wasn’t right. Clint knew this guy’s schedule. He was like him, he only left the premises for missions and nothing else. No family to speak of (or that he had spoken of at the very least) few friends. He wasn’t seeing anyone within SHIELD either...Clint would know. Everyone would know. It was rare for Agents _not_  to know at least the basics of each other’s life (or at least the Agents within their sector). Information was literally their job after all.

“Congrats. How come this is the first time I’ve heard about her?” Clint asked, leaning against the door frame and crossing his arms. Clint was wary of his body language and tucked one ankle behind another, to make it look more casual. _This Agent is a ‘friend’._  He reminded himself. _This is not an interrogation._  Maybe his brain was still in mission mode...then again, it usually was when he was suspicious. That was the right word, too. Not curious. Suspicious.

Agent Salor laughed. It was a laugh that told Clint he had been waiting for that question but he still wasn’t fully prepared for it.

“Well...” He rubbed the back of his neck nervously, not making eye contact. “The truth is...Anna is a foreign bride.” He said, his eyes darting over to Clint to see his reaction.

Judging by how his eyes darted away again, he didn’t like what he saw.

“Please tell me you don’t mean a mail order bride.” Clint said as he pinched the bridge of his nose, his eyes closing and that caused his brain to remember how tired he was. This will not be good. 

“Don’t call them that, Clint. You make it sound like I’ve never met her before and I just paid a couple thousand dollars and they will ship me a woman right to my door who will cook and clean and, shit, Barton!” He was getting defensive. Clint hadn’t seen him that way. Part of it was almost funny.

“Well, I should hope not.” Clint commented, keeping his cool. “Considering that that is Human Trafficking...tm” Clint couldn’t help but make that joke. It was getting serious.

Salor shook his head. “It’s not like that, Barton.” He said, leaning his head on the wall behind him. “It’s just online dating, but with the understanding that we are both looking for marriage and children. It’s wonderful.” He looked back at Clint with an encouraging smile. 

“We wrote letters, and sent gifts, and talked on the phone...I sound like a fucking ad campaign, don’t I?” He laughed. “But who cares? I didn’t have to get out of bed to talk to her, and our first date was her showing me around her hometown. Here, look. Engagement photo.” He passed a framed photo of him smiling with a (speaking frankly) gorgeous young woman. She was a little shorter than him, and perhaps carrying a bit more weight than traditionally considered attractive. Her eyes crinkled at the corners, her smile genuine. She looked at him adoringly.

Clint had worked with human traffickers before (and by “worked with” he meant “arrested”) and he had seen tv specials about the beautiful foreign women who married American men only to be abused and killed...

And yet....he felt a twinge of jealousy. He wanted a beautiful woman to look at him with that kind of love. He wanted a wife one day (he had wanted them his whole life, but finding his brother’s family had made it worse) and possibly children too....

He would never abuse his wife. He’d give research a go, and if he liked the results he’d sign up.

* * *

 

Thankfully the next day Coulson had let Clint have a day to himself to recoup. Clint made the easy choice to not even leave his little apartment that day. He instead made coffee and sat at the computer. 

Clint suddenly was overcome by a feeling that this was more like homework than anything else.

After wading through some unhelpful sites, Clint felt like maybe he was finally getting somewhere. The forums of people talking about marrying women they met on sites seemed honest. Some mentioned that their marriages weren’t perfect, but many mentioned that they were happy with their marriages. Some even mentioned they had divorced which Clint would have expected to be filtered if the forums were biassed.

After some surprising statistics (with believable explanations) and some jealousy stirring stories, Clint decided that he really didn’t have much to lose.

Clint found a site that allowed him to put up his own profile, instead of just browse women’s profiles (it felt more equal and less like he was going through a mail order catalogue). It took a while to find all the things he needed (according to the tips he had found on a site). It honestly just felt like joining an online dating site (dammit. He should have just tried that, shouldn’t he?). The first suggestion had been a good photo of him in a suit, which he, of course, had because of his job. Finding one of him smiling had been a harder task. Clint cursed his naturally dour expression.

Clint’s head hurt already. He had to stop. He picked up his coffee and frowned when he found his cup empty. He needed more coffee to keep doing this. 

Why was he even doing this? He asked that question, even though he knew the answer. He was a lonely man with no other way to meet women, and he was jealous of Agent Salor and his wife.

Clint sighed and filled up his coffee cup to take a sip. Turns out loneliness is quite the motivator.

He sat back down to work on his profile. He could worry about adding more than one picture later.

“Okay, simple things first.” He said to himself. “Don’t overthink this.” 

Name: Clint

Location: New York City, New York State, USA

Age: 35

Personal Message: 

Clint paused. What did he want to say? Being negative or sarcastic was his instinct, but no woman would want him if he wrote that. He clicked a couple of advertised profiles to get ideas. He found one that made him smile and he decided to do something similar.

Personal message: A former farm boy from Iowa who currently lives in the big city. Has seen many places in the world, but there is no place like home. Dreams of a home of his own, with a family.

That sounded good, right? Women would like a guy who likes being home and having a family, right? And country boys are sexy...apparently. Clint honestly wouldn’t know.

Interests: 

This one was easy at least.

Interests: Archery, travel, trapeze (with a bit of tightrope walking...I used to be in the circus, okay?), Staying home watching tv, people watching

Personality: Bit of a homebody nowadays because I’m exhausted from working hard (Law Enforcement), loves kids and animals, I spend a lot of time with my sister in law (brother’s wife) on her farm, helping out with the work and kids. People tell me that I’m funny.

 Languages:

_Oh god_. Clint thought. This will be embarrassing. He wrote down English (First language) and Italian (fluent). How the hell did he function being unable to speak the languages of practically all the countries he had to visit?

Education:

Clint cringed and drank his coffee in large gulps. God that was a problem. 

_Self-directed studies_. He wrote, tactfully. Clint hated that he had never finished school. Some of the profiles he had browsed had listed university and college, some had _doctorates_...Clint felt stupid in comparison.

Clint also listed his private number and email address for people to contact him. The idea of a woman calling him seemed a bit far-fetched, though. He would need to check his emails more often.

Clint found the rest of it easier. Star Sign? Gemini (Clint actually had to look that up). Height? 6′3″. Weight? 230lbs. (Thank you SHIELD medical and your pointless exams) Eye colour? Blue. Hair? “Dirty” blond. Hair length: short. Ethnicity? White. Marital status?

Clint sighed. Few people knew about his divorce. He had been able to keep it a secret (quite the feat, considering she was another SHIELD Agent) but...maybe that’s what happens when you marry after nine days? This relationship...he wanted it to last. He wanted to forget Bobbi and him ever happened (how could they get a divorce when they saw each other every day but Laura still loved Barney after who knows how long? How old was Lila again?)

Clint answered divorced.

Children? No. Want children? Yes. He listed his profession as Law Enforcement again, since that was the most he was allowed to say, and his occupation as Archer. 

He wondered what that would make women think of him.

He wasn’t religious and didn’t smoke. While he _did_  drink, he probably would never drink around his wife or girlfriend. Not with _his_  family history. Still, he listed that he did, occasionally, drink. Better safe than sorry.

Now came the thinning part. Filtering out any women he wouldn’t want. He didn’t care about appearances, but he would prefer a girl over twenty-five. Any younger would look and feel creepy.

He started to think about what he wanted in a wife. He thought about the results on his last psych eval... He went back to his Personality section and added that he was recently diagnosed with Depression. Any woman who would be willing to deal with that...would already be perfect for him. Still, he needed to list things that he wanted. A picture of Bobbi came to his mind. He frowned and typed “not secretive”. That was his biggest thing. after that, it was Laura inspiring his dream wife (his brother didn’t seem to know how lucky he was): compassionate, independent, friendly, funny... He was looking for a best friend as much as a wife, and he made a note of that. He wondered if that was unreasonable...

Clint decided that was enough. He was tired and the coffee wasn’t helping as much as it should. He got up to go back to bed.

**Author's Note:**

> This was literally a chapter of Clint setting up his profile (because I needed to have all that in there). Natasha will probably appear next chapter and then things should pick up.


End file.
